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t^tikAAAAMjkditkAAMJbAAdiAd,^^ ' f 1 1 1 1 n 11 ji. i_i_uj_u 



The Wise Man of the Scriptures; or, Science and Religion. 



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7 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVEREI) IN" 'J'UE 



Sillacjc Cljurrlj m l^mljcrst, Slarclj 2^, 18S4, 



AT THE FUNERAL OF 



Rsi M EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D. D., LI, D. 



BY WILLIAM S. TYLEK, 

PROFESSOR VS A5IUERSX COLLEQE. 



SPRINGFIELD: 

SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1 8 G4. 



■^^^^ffTw>¥Ty^ » * I II V I ^ ^y^ry^'^^^'^F^ v v v v f » » wi^^rfr^\ i MD i u ii um ^ 



The Wise Man of the Scriptures; or, Science and Eeligion. 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



Wtlh^t Cfjurdj lit i^mljerst, Itartlj Sir, 1S64, 



AT THE FUNERAL OP 



M M EDWARD HITCHCOCK, B. D., LL. D. 



BY WILLIAM S. TYLER, 

PROFESSOR IX AMHERST COLLEGE. 



SPRINGFIELD: 
SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1864. 



CU-;^ 'L 






/ 3 ^(> zr 



/ 



DISCOURSE. 



"and he spake of trees from the cedar tree, that is in 
leban:on evex uxto the hyssop, that sprixgeth out of 
the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and 
of creeping things, and of fishes." 

L KlXGS, iv. 33. 



It is not for the gratification of an idle and curious 
fancy, that I have chosen these words, as the theme of dis- 
course on this afflictive occasion. They suggest thoughts 
in harmony with the all-wise but mysterious Providence, 
that has called us together. They remind us of our great 
loss. But they are also fruitful in the instruction and the 
consolation, Avhich we need. 

Wherever the Sacred Scriptures are known, the name 
of Solomon is a synonym with wisdom. They pronounce 
him, without hesitation and without exception, wiser than 
all men ; and the variety and extent of his human knowl- 
edge, in so early a period of the world's history, go far to 
justify the assertion, irrespective of the divine wisdom which 
was imparted to him by supernatural inspiration. He was 
emphatically the savant of Israel, a land which excelled 
in poetry and religion, rather than in science. He was 
the sage of the Orient. "His wisdom excelled the wis- 
dom of all the children of the east country and all the 
wisdom of Egypt," the lands which Avere most distin- 
guished for their early civilization, literature and philoso- 



phy. His fame was not confined to the limits of his own 
country, widely as those limits were extended under the 
reign of David and Solomon. Kings and courtiers came 
from distant lands to see and hear the proofs of his wis- 
dom, and went away exclaiming, that the half had not 
been told them. He was the earliest writer, from whom 
any works have come down to us, to whom the title of 
philosopher was strictly applicable. He deserved that 
name — he acquired the corresponding name of wise man — 
many centuries before Pythagoras, who first bore it in 
Greece. He is the only person whom the sacred writers 
extol expressly for literary and scientific attainments. 
The Bible is little given to commendation or censure of 
individual characters. But Solomon is a marked excep- 
tion. The Old Testament labors to extol, we had almost 
said, to exaggerate, the incomparable greatness of his wis- 
dom and the matchless glories of his reign ; and the IS'ew 
Testament echoes the praises of the Old. 

If he was not born a universal genius, he cultivated and 
acquired a singular variety of talents. His education was 
doubtless the best, which the kingdom could furnish, in- 
cluding the instructions and example of his father David, 
who was at once the sweetest poet and one of the greatest 
warriors and statesmen of his day. Yet when he came 
to the throne, and God bade him ask what he should give 
him, modestly regarding himself as a mere child, quite in- 
competent to the government of so great a people, he 
asked for wisdom. " And God gave Solomon wisdom and 
understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, 
(or greatness of mind), even as the sand that is on the 
sea-shore." In accordance with a view common to the 
sacred writers and quite characteristic of them, the author 
of the sacred history reckons Solomon's literary works 
and scientific achievements among the results of that wis- 
dom, which was the gift of God. Besides administering 
the government, building the temple and other magnifi- 
cent monuments of his wealth, power and taste, he wrote 



an immense number of works on a great variety of most 
diverse subjects. He was a poet. "His songs were a 
thousand and five." Among or besides these, was that 
remarkable one, which has come down to us, and which, 
on account of its unriviiled beauty and richness, has al- 
ways and every where been known by the distinguished 
appellation of the Song of Songs. He was a moral phi- 
losopher. "And he spake three thousand proverbs," 
which have been preserved in part in the Book of Prov- 
erbs, a book remarkable alike for its instructive senti- 
ments and for its pithy and beautiful style. ]^or is the 
Book of Ecclesiastes less remarkable for its profound and 
original discussion of the most difficult questions in ethics 
and theology, than is the Book of Proverbs for its senten- 
tious oracles touching human nature and human life. At 
the same time, he was also a naturalist. "He spake of 
trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the 
hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of 
beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." 
These early and, in that age particularly, rare works in 
natural history are all lost, and in the absence of any in- 
formation touching their contents, it is impossible to de- 
cide, whether they were purely scientific or whether they 
were illustrative also of the works and w^ays of God. 
Though we cannot but think, the latter supposition is far 
more probable, both from the character of Solomon as 
it appears in the sacred histor}^, and also from the analogy 
of the books, which have come down to us from his pen, 
which abound in illustrations of religious truth drawn 
from the habits of the lower animals and from the anat- 
omy of the human body. 

But the highest wisdom of Solomon, and the crowning 
excellence of his character, was his piety. This was, by 
no means, perfect. ISTeither his private character, nor his 
conduct as a ruler, was entirely without reproach. As if 
to show the vanity of human wisdom as well as of human 
glory, he was sufifered to fall into many and gross sins. 



Judging from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which we cannot 
but believe to be a faithful portraiture of his own relig- 
ious experience, he must, at times, have been strongly in- 
clined to skepticism and even materialism, as, we know 
from his history, he was to the worship of false gods and 
the love of strange women. But, under the guidance of 
the Divine Spirit, he worked out the difficult and some- 
times apparently doubtful problem successful 1}', and 
reached the sublime conclusion that to "fear God and keep 
his commandments " is not only " the beginning of wis- 
dom," but "the whole duty," or, as it is in the emphatic 
language of the original, the luhole of man. 

In contemplating so remarkable a character, it is inter- 
esting to observe, in the first place, the use, which the 
providence and the Spirit of God made of his wisdom and 
genius. What honor he put upon him ! Though a king, 
he was king of a comparatively small, obscure and isolated 
kingdom, which was soon after divided, and almost 
crushed between the great empires of Assyria, Persia and 
Eo-ypt, and at length conquered successively by the Greeks 
and the Eomans, who always regarded the Jews as the 
most despicable of all the subject nations. Yet the his- 
tory of Solomon, incorporated with the history of God's 
chosen people and thus associated with the religion of 
Christ, has been read b}^ more persons than ever read 
Plutarch's Lives or the Annals of Tacitus. His name has 
been pronounced, as the wisest of men, by m^a-iads of 
children, who never heard of a Solon or a Cicero, an 
Alexander or a Csesar. Thus it is that God delights to 
honor genius and learning, when they are chiefly ambi- 
tious to honor him. 

And God has honored this wisest of men, not so much 
in perpetuating his name, as in using him for an instru- 
ment of good to others. What untold multitudes have 
been guided and stimulated in the pursuit of true wisdom 
by the history and the very name of Solomon ! And how 



many of the greatest as well as the humblest minds have 
been instructed by his writings, as they have been read 
in the synagogues and churches in all ages, and are now 
read in families without number in every part of the civ- 
ilized world. What a different book the Bible would 
have been without the three Books, that bear the name of 
Solomon. What a mine of practical wisdom is opened to 
the world in the Proverbs ! What a guide and solace to 
doubting minds, and, at the same time, what a check and 
balance to worldly and ambitious spirits, is bequeathed to 
the ages in Ecclesiastes ! And with what profit and de- 
light have the church and the pious soul seen themselves 
in the mirror of the Song of Songs, bedecked and crowmed 
as the bride of the Son of God, the Savior of the world ! 
God does not need the testimony of wise and great men 
to his works or to his word. But in condescension to 
human weakness, he often employs it for the elucidation 
of the truth and the confirmation of our faith. If they 
really love and obey the truth, great minds reflect more 
honor on the God of truth, as Sirius or the sun shines 
more brightly to his Maker's praise, than a star of inferior 
magnitude, and also draws after him a brighter and more 
numerous array of planets and satellites in his magnifi- 
cent circuit around the central sun of the universe. 

In the second place, we are led to think of the natural 
and normal connection between learning and religion. 
God has put great honor upon learned men in the very 
composition of the Sacred Scriptures. This is seen in tho 
bare fact, that so large a portion of the Books of the Old 
Testament, and more than half of the Books of the IlTew, 
were written by men {.iistinguished for their learning. 
Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." 
Five of the largest and most important Books were from 
his pen — in a sense, they are the foundation of the whole 
Jewish and Christian Revelation. The author of the 
Book of Job had manifestly observed and studied the 



8 

movements of the heavenly bodies, the internal structure 
of the earth, the animals whether of the land or the wa- 
ter, and his own bodily and mental constitution. Three 
Books bear the "image and superscription " of Solomon. 
We might well speak of Isaiah, who was doubtless trained 
in the schools of the prophets, and Daniel, who surpassed 
all the wise men of Babylon in human as well as divine 
knowledge, and we know not how many other prophets, 
who probably received the best education that could be 
found in their times, and Ezra, who was qualified for re- 
vising and closing the canon of the Old Testament, by 
prodigious learning combined with true piety. But let 
us pass on to the !N'ew Testament, and there we shall find, 
that the majority of all the Books — fourteen out of twenty- 
seven — were written by one man, and that man learned in 
all the wisdom of the Jews and the Greeks. The Spirit 
as well as providence of God employs fit instruments and 
none but learned men and profound thinkers would have 
been suitable instruments for writing the Books of the 
Law, the Philosophy of Human Life, (if I may so style 
the subject both of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes), and the 
Didactic Theology of the IsTew Testament. 

It is only science and philosophy falsely so called, that 
is ever disparaged in the Scriptures. "When human wis- 
dom exalts itself above the wisdom of God, or sets itself 
in opposition to the kingdom of God, then of course it is 
false and deserves to be dishonored. But true wisdom is 
modest, humble, teachable. Its symbol. Whether in sci- 
ence or in religion, is the little child, sitting and inquiring 
at the feet of his father. All true knowledge is one, as 
the universe is one and has but one author. Its sum, as 
well as its source, is in God. " Known unto God are all 
his works from the foundation of the world." The 
knowledge of him therefore involves a knowledge of all 
his works, as the fountain involves the stream, as the mind 
of-^he builder comprehends the building, as the knowl- 
edge of the writer includes the knowledge of all his writ- 



9 

ings. And, vice versa, the knowledge of any one of bis 
works is a help to the knowledge of any other, and is a 
part of the knowledge of God himself. The science of 
the heavens, the science of the earth, the science of man, 
whether of the body or the mind— these are all parts of 
the science of God. There is a necessary relation between 
all other knowledge and the knowledge of God, and since 
that is, in its own nature, the highest knowledge, all other 
knowledge should be, and so far as it is genuine, will be 
ancillary to it. Galileo and Copernicus were God's chosen 
instruments for revealing himself to men, not less truly, 
though in a different way, than Job and David. Indeed 
the revelation which the Holy Ghost made through the 
latter was never understood in all the fullness of its mean- 
ing, till, through the former. Divine Providence revealed 
the unimagiued extent and the stupendous revolutions of 
the material universe. Then the readers of the Scriptures 
began to see in those words which the Holy Ghost teach- 
eth, a beauty and a grandeur such as the writers them- 
selves never could have conceived or imagined. " When 
I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that 
thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou vis- 
itest him ? Lo ! these are parts of his ways, but how lit- 
tle a portion is heard of him ! But the thunder of his 
power who can understand?" "What a fullness of mean- 
ing, never before comprehended, do these words of inspi- 
ration derive from the light of modern science ! The 
Psalmist saw the glory of God in the light of one sun. 
Thanks to the science of astronomy, we see it in the light 
of ten thousand. He illustrated the law of God by the 
order and harmony of one system ; thanks to the discov- 
eries of l!Tewton and Kepler, we can see the law of gravi- 
tation and the law of love stretching out in parallel lines 
through suns and systems without number, l^or do those 
sciences which pertain to man, shed less light on the word 
of God and the truths of religion. It was left for modern 
2 



10 

anatomy and physiology to reveal how " fearfally and 
wonderfully we are made." Psychology discloses the still 
more wonderful adaptations and the still more fearful con- 
stitution of our immortal spirits. Comparative philology 
testifies in harmony with Revelation, that " God has made 
of one blood all the nations of men that dwell on the 
face of the earth," and as they sprung from a common an- 
cestor, so they need a common Savior; " as by one man's 
disobedience all were made sinners, so by the obedience 
of one all may be made righteous." And philology, in 
its most comprehensive sense, including language, history, 
antiquities and all the kindred branches, carries ns back 
to the times and jDlaces in which the sacred writers lived, 
and enables us to hear their own language as it were from 
their own lips; nay, carries us back to the Genesis of our 
race, and then brings us down through the Deluge, and 
the Dispersion, and Exodus from Egypt, and the giving 
of the Law, and the reigns of the Kings, and the Captivity, 
and the fullness of time when he came who was the Desire 
of all ISTatioDS, the scenes of the Gospels also, and the Acts 
of the Apostles, the establishment and growth of the 
Christian Church, in a word all along the stream of sacred 
history and far down the stream of prophecy toward the 
consummation of all things, as it is disclosed in the Rev- 
elation. And as God reigns in the material universe, so 
he reigns also in human history. As the one is his book 
of Creation, so the other is his book of Providence, and 
both run in parallel columns alongside his book of Reve- 
lation in that grand harmony which contains all the truth 
that God ha§ revealed to man. And he who raised up a 
Solomon to write in the Old Testament and a Paul to 
write in the ISTew, raised up also, each in his time, a l^ew- 
ton to discover and proclaim that all the laws of nature 
are only the rules and methods of God's working, and an 
Edwards to teach that all history is directly or indirectly 
a history of redemption. As the wider extension of the 
bounds of the visible universe, through the discoveries of 



11 

astronomers, has poured a flood of light and glory upon 
the natural attributes and the natural government of God, 
which has given a new significance to the language of in- 
spiration ; so the growth of the Church and the progress 
of Christian civilization, as developed by the most enlight- 
ened historians, have furnished some demonstrations of 
Christ the wisdom of God, and Christ the power of God, 
of Christ the light of the world and Christ the life of the 
world, of Christ as the center of the ages and nations, 
which could not have been seen by the eyes even of 
prophets and apostles. 

But, in the third place, our text suggests especially the 
connection between the several branches of natural his- 
tory and the religion of the Bible. The w^riter of some ol 
the most instructive books in the Bible was also the au- 
thor of books on botany and zoolog}', and the fact is deemed 
worthy of commemoration in sacred history : " And he 
spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even 
unto the hyssop that springcth out of the wall ; he spake 
also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 
fishes." So numerous and so wonderful are the analogies 
and correspondences between nature and revelation, as 
not only to prove that they both proceed from the same 
author, but also to suggest the idea that nature was chiefly 
intended to be only a kind of mould into which revelation 
was to be cast; natural objects only t3'pes and symbols of 
spiritual things ; and all the myriad sights and voices of 
the natural world a natural language by which God speaks 
to the souls of men, and the souls of men in turn speak to 
each other and to God. Figurative language is not a 
mere play of the imagination. It is not b}^ some acci- 
dental discovery or human invention that all words in all 
languages originally and properly signify objects, actions 
and events in the outvrard world. The material world 
was made for this jpurpose. It is a universal language. The 
elements of nature are a universal alphabet, and their 



12 

infinitely varied compounds are so many words and 
thoughts of God intelligible to all, more or less understood 
by men of all ages and nations, and directly or indirectly 
the only medium through which men communicate their 
thoughts to each other as well as to God. We often hear 
of the language of flowers. There is much of fancy in 
the details, but the idea is based on a profound truth. 
There is a language of flowers. There is also a language 
of plants and animals, and it is the language of God. 
Hence it is that the sacred writers use so much of this 
language; and the Son of God while here on earth appro- 
priated it as if it were peculiarly his own. " Consider 
the lilies of the field." "Behold the fowls of the air." 
"I am the true vine," that is, the real, genuine vine, 
« &'^irsXog &X7]?iivr; " — the vine commonly so called is only the 
image and shadow of the real. " My Father giveth you 
the true bread," that is, the real bread, which imparts real 
life. How full of such lessons is the whole Bible ! The 
parables of our Lord are all such. And how full they are 
of wisdom, life and power ! And the more this language 
of nature is studied and analyzed, like those languages of 
men which are fashioned after it, the more wonderful does 
its structure appear. The better its nature and power are 
understood, the more distinctly does it speak to us, as the 
voice of God to our souls, and teach us, in part at least, 
the same great lessons of truth and duty which he incul- 
cates in his written word. 

All science, as we have before said, is of God and from God. 
And to the educated and reflective, history and psychol- 
ogy may perhaps reveal more of God than even astrono- 
my and geology. But the physical sciences address them- 
selves more to the senses, and so speak a language more 
intelligible and impressive to the common mind. 

Again among the physical sciences, mechanics, optics, 
and the several branches of natural philosophy, develop 
chiefly the relation of cause and efiect, which is more 
nearly allied to metaphysical ideas. But botany, zoology 



13 

and the several branches of natural history have to do 
with Jinal causes, with the adaptations of means to, ends, 
which are more directly and palpably of a moral nature. 
Hence it is from the internal structure of the earth, and 
from the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, 
including man, the highest of the animal creation, that 
natural theology has drawn most of the arguments and 
illustrations by which it substantiates the great doctrines 
of natural and revealed religion. 

Seen in the light of these sciences, the world in which 
we live is a Bible as full of sacred history, and miracles, 
and prophecies, and types— of antitypes also, and fulfill- 
ments of prophecy — and new creations, and progress to- 
wards a higher and better future, as the written word of 
God ; and the whole creation almost literally groaneth and 
travaileth together in birth-pangs for a new and higher 
life, while it waits in earnest expectation for the manifes- 
tation of the sons of God. 

"We cannot but remark, in the fourth place, as an obvi- 
ous corollary from the foregoing propositions, upon which 
we need not dwell, that the natural tendency of such 
studies is to faith and humble piety. The poet has w^ell 
said, "The undevout astronomer is mad." He stands in 
the temple of God, built by God's own hand, and admires 
the structure, but refuses to bow down and worship, per- 
chance (if he is unbelieving as well as undevout) ignores 
the very existence of any builder. But the undevout and 
unbelieving naturalist is, if possible, still more mad. He 
comes into the very sanctuary, where God dwells and 
works and imparts life, and sees no chemist in the labora- 
tory of nature, no w^orkman in the curious workshop of 
the human body, no optician's hand in the structure of 
the eye, no designer in a world full of the most wonder- 
ful contrivances, no living fountain in a world through which 
life flows everywhere in gushing and overflowing streams. 

!N"or are such studies more favorable to faith than to hu- 



14 

mility. "The kingdom of men found in science," says 
Lord Eacon, " is like the kingdom of heaven ; it can be 
entered only in the character of a little child." The stu- 
dent of nature, like the student of the Bible, is a mere 
inquirer at the oracles of God. It is his business to inter- 
rogate nature, to register her responses, and then to 
classify and generalize the results. He sits like a little 
child at his father's, or if you please his mother's feet, 
and from morning to night does nothing but ask ques- 
tions. If he wanders away from that position he is soon 
lost. If he relies, for a little, on his own wisdom and 
strength he is soon taught by bitter experience that he 
knows nothing, that he can do nothing, that he can be 
nothing independently of his parents. 

And facts correspond with these arguments from the 
nature of the case. There are of course exceptions. Lit- 
tle children are not always humble and teachable. l!^atu- 
ralists have not all been humble and believing Christians. 
But by far the most and the greatest of them have not 
only believed and worshiped the God of the universe, 
but have gone to the oracles of revealed truth and the 
temples of Christian worship with the same humble, teach- 
able and believing spirit. Persian Magi, astronomers, 
star worshipers, or, as they are called in our version, 
wise men from the East, were the first to pay their hom- 
age to the child that was born to be the Redeemer and 
King of Israel. They saw his star in the East. Their 
science led them to the birth-land of the infant Savior. 
The}'- came inquiring, " Where is he that is born King of 
the Jews, for w^e have seen his star in the East, and are 
come to worship him. Aud when they saw the star stand- 
ing over where the young child was, ihej rejoiced with 
exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the 
house, they saw the 3'oung child with Mary his mother, 
and fell down and worshiped him." The name, that is 
written highest in the register of modern science, stands 
equally high in the records of Christian faith and piety. 



15 

As he looked out over the word as well as the works of 
God, ISTewton felt himself to be but a little child, standing 
on the shore and picking up a few shells which were cast 
up on the beach, while the boundless ocean of truth lay 
unexplored before him. Such too has been the humility 
and modesty, such the faith and reverential, filial love of 
the great majority of modern geologists and naturalists — 
the authors of the Eridgewater Treatises — the members 
of the British and the American Association for the ad- 
vancement of science, whose naines, while they adorn the 
age, illustrate the Christian religion, and whose writings 
and addresses at their public meetings have not unfre- 
quently been, in their spirit though not in form, "sermons' 
speaking not only of God but also of the Redeemer."* 
And such, I need not say, eminently such v/as the spirit 
of the great and good man, whose too early death, though 
at the age of three score years and ten, we this day de- 
plore. Edward Hitchcock rejoiced in the honored name 
of geologist, naturalist, man of science, which the scien- 
tific world, with one voice, has conferred upon him. But 
it was his highest glory and his chief joy, that he was a 
humble, penitent, believing and adoring disciple of Christ. 
If in the greatness and the variety of his talents and at- 
tainments, he was no unworthy representative of the wise 
man of the Scriptures, so was he in the consecration of 
all those talents and attainments to the highest and best 
ends. It was his mission to illustrate, in his life as well 
as by his tongue and his pen, the beauty and harmony of 
the connection between science and religion. He is dead; 
but his memory lives. His influence lives and will live 
forever. He is gone from us. But his works do fol- 
low him. His character and his writings remain to bless 
the world. "We have lost a friend and a fVither here be- 
low; but we have gained one on high. Amherst College 

*Se8 in Reminiscences of Amherst College, p. 357, Dr. Robinson's motion for 
a vote of thanks to Dr. Mantell for his lecture before the British Association in 
1850. 



16 

has lost a pillar ; but lie is now a pillar in the temple of 
God. Earth has lost a bright light ; but heaven has 
gained a star of the first magnitude ; audit will still shine 
upon us in the night, and guide us in our earthly pil- 
grimage. 

The time and place forbid anything but a meagre out- 
line of his life and character. The gratefal task of writ- 
ino- his biography which might otherwise have been per- 
formed by some friendly hand, is superseded by that inter- 
esting auto-biography in which, his last published work, 
he has himself drawn the characteristic features of his life 
and laid bare his inmost heart with the familiarity and 
frankness of a conversation at his own fireside. The 
charm of novelty has thus been taken from any narration 
of incidents which might now be given. Still the occa- 
sion demands a summary of the leading events, and some 
analvsis of the character of one who has held so high a 
place among scientific men, and, at the same time, been 
so widely known and esteemed by the masses. 

The principal facts of his life in a synoptical form and in 
chronological order, are as follows : He was born in Deer- 
field, Franklin County, Massachusetts, May '24th, 1793 ; 
was principal of the academy in his native place from 
1815 to 1818 ; was ordained pastor of the Congregational 
Church in Conway, June 21st, 1821, and.dismissed in Oc- 
tober, 1825 ; elected Professor of Chemistry and ISTatural 
History in Amherst College, August 23d, 1825 ; appointed 
State Geologist of Massachusetts, June 26th, 1830, and of 
the first District of Kew York, June 13th, 1836 ; received 
the degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard University in 
1840 ; was chosen President of Amherst College and Pro- 
fessor of Natural Theology and Geology, December 16th, 
1844; received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
Middlebury College in 1846 ; was appointed Commis- 
sioner of the State Government to examine the Agricul- 
tural Schools in Europe, May 23d, 1850 ; delivered his 



17 

address on retiring from the Presidency, Kovember 22d, 
1854 ; was appointed to complete the Geological Survey 
of the State of Vermont in April, 1857 ; and continued 
to lecture in the department of Geology and Natural The- 
ology, though for a few years past with some assistance 
from his sons, till 1864, when he was called to higher 
honors and nobler services in heaven. 

His elections to membership in literary and scientific 
associations, in his own country and in foreign lands, and 
his invitations to other fields and departments of labor 
which he did not feel at liberty to accept, were too nu- 
merous to be mentioned on this occasion. 

He was the youngest son of Deacon Justin and Mrs. 
Mercy Hitchcock. His father was by trade a hatter, 
though he labored also more or less on a farm, poor but 
greatly respected by the neighbors for his strong mind, 
sterling sense and steadfast piety. He was a soldier in the 
revolutionary war (as his father had been a soldier before 
him.) He was a deacon in the church, and when his pas- 
tor swerved from the evangelical faith, he tried his hand, 
with no mean success, in occasionally writing orthodox 
sermons. 

His mother was a Hoyt, and belonged to a family of dis- 
tinction in Deerfield. She was a woman of active mind 
and marked character. Her piety was without reproach. 
But her organ of hope was small. She was constitution- 
ally subject to depression, and in the latter part of her life 
she sufi'ered dreadfully from poor health and nervous de- 
bility. A thunder shower would throw her into a parox- 
ysm of uncontrollable apprehension, and if the family or 
any member of it were detained from home under sucb 
circumstances as to excite her fears, she would stand and 
wring her hands in anguish till their return. Those who 
have known Dr. Hitchcock with any intimacy, will see at 
once that he united in himself the marked characteristics 
of both his parents — the intellectual and moral stamina of 
the one and the acute nervous sensibility of the other. 
3 



18 

His boyhood was spent, with his brothers, in working 
on the farm. For variety he sometimes dipped into car- 
pentering and surveying. As deputy sheriff and aid-de- 
camp under General Hoyt, he early had a taste of civil 
and military life whichj his colleagues often thought, was 
of use to him when he became an officer in college. His 
opportunities for early education were limited. Obliged 
to labor through the day, he studied chiefly by night. 
"When a rainy day was added to his leisure, he was de- 
lighted. In the absence of other means, he educated him- 
self. He observed nature, and reflected on his own con- 
stitution, while following the plow. He lay on his back 
and studied the stars till he injured his eyesight and im- 
paired his health. With all his disadvantages, such was 
the value which he attached to a thorough academical ed- 
ucation that he set out to prepare for an advanced stand- 
ing in Harvard University ; but a fit of sickness so weak- 
ened his eyes, already injured by night study and over- 
exertion, that he was obliged to relinquish all hope of 
ever going through college. 

His first publication was a poem of five hundred lines, 
written partly because he knew not what else to do, and 
partly because his mind and the public mind at that time 
was full of the subject. It appeared in 1815, and was en- 
titled "The Downfall of Bonaparte." It drew attention to 
the youthful author, and also procured him some substan- 
tial benefits. His next appearance before the public was 
in quite another capacity, that of a mathematician and as- 
tronomer. The American re-publisher of the English 
ITautical Almanac ofiered ten dollars to any man who 
should discover an error. The young savant of Deerfield, 
then Principal of Deerfield Academy, sent him a list 
of forty-seven errors, and, on receiving only evasive an- 
swers, published the list. This drew forth a contemptu- 
ous reply, in which the critic who has presumed to arraign 
the editor of the ISTautical Almanac, is spoken of as "one 
Edward Hitchcock." The calculations for the next year 



19 

were revised with great care, but no sooner had the almanac 
appeared than that same Edward Hitchcock dared to send 
out after it a list of errors more numerous than that of 
the previous year. And so the controversy went on, till 
the editor, discovering his mistake, changed his tone, and 
one Edward Hitchcock became first Mr. Edward Hitch- 
cock, and at length due acknowledgment was made in 
the preface, of the editor's obligations to "Edward Hitch- 
cock, Esq., to whom much credit is due for the industry 
and talent bestowed upon the work." During the four 
years of his connection with Deerfield Academy, he went 
through every year all the calculations for the Farmer's 
Almanac, not excepting those for the weather, to which 
his imagination was as competent as his science was to 
calculate the eclipses and conjunctions. 

From accounts gathered chiefly from himself it would 
appear that Dr. Hitchcock was not properly a precocious 
child. But in his childhood and youth he had already de- 
veloped all that variety of talents and all those marked 
habits and characteristics which distinguished his after- 
life, industry, temperance, economy of time and money, 
originality, independence, moral courage, bad health, 
nervous excitability, and sometimes morbid depression of 
spirits. His boyhood was as unlike other boys as his 
manhood was unlike other men. He " looked upon ordi- 
nary amusements and recreations with a sort of contempt. 
He never learned to dance or play cards, never attended 
a ball," seldom a public dinner. All the money he could 
get he devoted to the purchase of books, and all the time 
he could spare from labor he spent in reading and study. 

The four years spent in Deerfield Academy contributed 
largely to the development of his powers and the perfect- 
ins: of his own education. He doubtless learned more, 
perhaps studied more, than any one of his pupils. At 
the same time, Providence was preparing for him a help- 
meet indeed, whose fortunes were ever to be interwoven 
with his own, and whose character, the counterpart and 



20 

balance of bis own, contributed scarce]}^ less than bis to 
their subsequent fortunes. He was assisted in the in- 
struction by a young lady (a Miss "White from Amherst), 
v/ho was destined to be an important instrument in his 
conversion ; whose hand and pen and pencil were ever 
after to move, as it were, in instinctive obedience to his 
will, and to whom, as the helper of his studies not less 
than the companion of his domestic life, his greatest work* 
was to be fitly and gracefully dedicated. 

It was at this period, that he experienced that radical 
change in his religious belief and in his whole character, 
which gave a new and unexpected direction to his subse- 
quent life. In common with not a few of the oldest and 
strongest churches in Massachusetts, under the subtle in- 
fluence of an able and popular pastor, the church in Deer- 
field had drifted almost unconsciously into Unitarianism. 
The father of young Hitchcock, though he protested 
against the new doctrines, was still a member and an ofii- 
cer of the old church. The son not only attended the 
ministry but imbibed the sentiments of his pastor. And 
what he did, he never did by halves. He not only held 
the new creed, but advocated it. Without examination, 
he took up the notion, that Orthodoxy was narrow and 
illiberal, and as such, he hated and denounced it. But 
he was not satisfied. IlTeither his intellect nor his heart 
found rest. He read the Scriptures carefully from begin- 
ning to end, without any other commentary, than that 
which is involved in marginal references, with the simple 
purpose of ascertaining the truth ; and he was obliged to 
admit, that they taught the Orthodox system. He looked 
at the fruits of the two systems, as they appeared in the 
lives of the church members, and could not deny, that 
there was more of Christian activity and life and power 
in the Orthodox churches in the vicinity, than there was 
in the Unitarian church in Deerfield. His principles 
proved inadequate to sustain him under the disappoint- 
ments and trials of life. He saw in others— especially in 



21 

one other, whom he could not but esteem and love, a peace 
of mind, and a meekness and gentleness of spirit, which 
he knew not of. The death of a young friend, who had 
lived a Unitarian and almost a skeptic, but who gave his 
dying testimony to the evangelical faith, brought him to 
a decision. At last, he submitted his heart and will to 
the practical claims of the Gospel the very night after the 
death of his bosom friend. 

Still he was not freed from his early misapprehensions 
and prejudices touching "the Orthodox." He imputed 
to them a belief in: natural inability, limited atonement, 
a literal imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, in- 
fant damnation and all the other extravagances, with 
which they are charged by their enemies. He still sup- 
posed them to be bigoted and uncharitable. In short, he 
thought them about as far from the truth and spirit of 
Christ, as the Unitarians. Under these circumstances, he 
joined the church, of which his father was a member, and 
set himself at work with all the zeal and energy of his na- 
ture to infuse into it more vitality ; and it was only when 
he found his exertions opposed and in a great measure 
thwarted by those who should have been the foremost to 
aid them, that he saw clearly the radical defect and false- 
hood of the whole system. He had even commenced 
study in preparation for the ministi-y with his own pastor. 
But more and more convinced by his own observation and 
experience, that all was not right, nay, that all was radi- 
cally wrong in that system, he broke away from the 
shackles, went to J^ew Haven for the further prosecution 
of his studies, and there learned, for the first time, what 
the evangelical system as then held b}' the ministers and 
churches of New England, was, and was equally surprised 
and delighted to find, that their views were essentially the 
same which he had derived from the independent study 
of the Sacred Scriptures. Meanwhile the providence and 
the Spirit of God were showing him more and more of the 
desperate wickedness of his own heart, the exceeding sin- 



22 

fulness of his past life, and his personal need of a Divine 
and Almighty Savior. The struggle w^as protracted and 
severe. But the surrender was at length unconditional, 
final and complete. The foundations of a thoroughly Cal- 
vinistic creed were immovably laid in a deep and thorough 
Christian experience. It was not till after he was settled 
in the ministry, that he fully embraced the doctrines of 
election and the Divine purposes. But his heart was al- 
ready prepared to receive them ; and, when he saw them 
in their scriptural and doctrinal relations, he built npon 
them the very foundation of his personal hope and of his 
confidence in the final triumph of the Gospel. If the 
atonement of Christ was, in his view, the corner-stone of 
the evangelical system, the sovereignty of God was the 
key-stone of the arch. If he had selected any one verse 
of the Bible to be the symbol of his theology, it would 
have been this, " Of him, and through him, and to him 
are all things : to whom be glory forever." 

As his first experience in teaching was in his native 
place, so his first and only settlement in the ministry was 
in a neighboring town. And the prophet was not with- 
out honor in his own country. Deerfield and Conway 
have always been proud of their association with the name 
of Edward Hitchcock. In Conway, while all name him 
with pride as their former pastor, very many remember him 
with gratitude and afiection as their spiritual father. His 
ministry there was short — only about four years. But it 
left an impression as enduring as the rocks and hills on 
which the town is built, and as happy as it is enduring. 
There were two general revivals of religion during his 
pastorate, and many were added to the church. His ser- 
mons, at this time, were short, seldom over thirty minutes, 
clear, forcible, considerably exegetical and sufficiently 
doctriual, but always eminently practical and spiritual. 
There was great variety in his preaching. "Well aware, 
that the first condition of usefulness in a sermon was, that it 
should be heard with attention, he resorted to all suitable 



23 

means to make his discourses interesting. Sometimes he 
would startle the audience by preaching from strange and 
unexpected texts. He once preached a sermon from the 
word "Selah," of which the doctrine was "stop and 
think." In times of revival, he adopted without hesita- 
tion such measures, as he thought best calculated, under 
the circumstances, to secure the desired result. Once at 
an evening meeting, where there was considerable feel- 
ing, but things were rather at a stand, instead of pro- 
nouncing the usual benediction on the whole congrega- 
tion at the close, he said, " How can I bless those whom 
God hath not blessed. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
be with all those that love him in sincerity. But if any 
man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema 
Maranatha." The effect was like an electric shock, and 
the result most happy. While his theology was decidedly 
of the Old School, he was practically a ITew Measure man ; 
though neither his old theology nor his new measures 
were carried to extremes. He had a profound veneration 
for Mr. ITettleton, and in efforts to promote revivals, trod 
in his footsteps, or rather showed a similar wisdom in the 
use of suitable means. 

During his pastorate at Conway, he found exercise and 
recreation in making a scientific survey of the western 
counties of Massachusetts. This was the beginning of 
that life among the rocks and mountains, which was ever 
after a delight and almost a passion. Like the giant in 
classical mythology, whenever he could plant his feet on 
the bosom of mother earth, he was in his element — it was 
his strength, his health, his life. This was also the origin 
of the geological survey of the entire State, which was 
afterwards made by the Government at his suggestion, 
and which has the honor of originating that rapid succes- 
sion of scientific surveys, which have since done so much 
to develop the mineral and agricultural resources of our 
country. 

The way was thus prepared for his appointment to be 



24 

tlie first Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in 
Amherst College. After some study and practice in the 
laboratory of Prof. Silliman at l^ew Haven, he entered 
upon the duties of his ofiice. The College was then in 
its infancy. There were but two college edifices. The 
Laboratory was a room in the fourth story of the present 
iTorth College, the same double room afterwards occupied 
for many years by the Library of the Alexandrian Society 
— which served.also the purpose of a Cabinet, a Philosoph- 
ical Room, and a Chapel. " There," he remarks some- 
what humorously in his valedictory address at the close 
of his presidency, " There mornlDg and evening, all col- 
lege assembled for their devotions. Li the intervening 
period, the Professor of IsTatural Philosophy or myself 
made preparations for our lectures and delivered them. 
, I thought however sometimes, that the students, at evening 

prayers, were more deeply afiected by the mephitic gases, 
that had been generated during the day, than by the relig- 
ious services." 

The chemical apparatus was then not worth ten dollars. 
Cabinet there was none. Not even a beginning had been 
made of those magnificent scientific collections, which 
now adorn the college hill. For many years, he was sole 
professor in all the departments of ISTatural History. He 
lectured and instructed in Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, 
Geology, Zoology, Anatomy and Physiology, Natural The- 
ology, and sometimes — to fill a temporary vacancy — he was 
the most suitable person, the college could depute to teach 
also Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. Like Solomon 
he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon 
to the hyssop that groweth out of the wall ; he spake also 
of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 
fishes. He spake also of rocks and soils, of which, so far 
as appears, Solomon did not speak. He dealt also in 
songs, and proverbs, to say nothing of sermons. He lived 
to see those departments occupy, in whole or in part, the 
time of four men ; the chemical laboratory and apparatus 



25 

among the finest in the United States, and the collections 
filling two spacious edifices, and, together with the build- 
ings, valued at from sevent^^-five to a hundred thousand 
dollars ; and all this the fruit, directly or indirectly, of 
his own enterprise, energy and perseverance. Dr. Hitch- 
cock created the materiel and the reputation of Amherst 
College in the Department of Natural History. 

At the same time he was deeply interested in the spir- 
itual w^elfare of the students. He took a prominent part 
in the preaching and biblical instruction, and by all the 
means in his power co-operated with President Humphrey 
in giving to the College, from its foundation, the religious 
character by which it has ever been distinguished. Those 
students, who were here in his professorial days, will never 
forget the pathos and unction, the point and power, with 
which he preached in the College Chapel, and especially 
in the old Rhetorical Room in times of revival. It was 
in those days, also, that he labored with so much zeal and 
success in the cause of temperance. For two or three 
years — in and near 1830 — his mind, his heart, his tongue, 
his pen w^ere all given to this subject, so far as they could 
be, without interfering with the more immediate duties of 
his professorship ; and the result was the establishment 
of a society in the College, pledged to total abstinence 
from ardent spirits, wine, opium and tobacco, which has 
ever since numbered among its members nearly all the 
officers and a large majority of the students ; and the pub- 
lication of several books, tracts, articles and essays — 
among the rest a prize essay — which have identified his 
name with the history of the Temperance Reformation 
scarcely less than with the advancement of science. No 
sooner was this work accomplished, than he entered with 
all his soul upon the series of geological explorations 
and scientific surveys, which occupied all the time and 
energy he could spare from the College, for the greater 
part of ten years. He did but one great work at a time. 
But he was never afraid of having too many smaller irons 
4 



26 

in the fire. The great work was his business. The 
smaller ones were his recreation ; and change was the only 
rest he allowed himself till sickness prostrated him and 
obliged him to lay aside all his occupations.* 

As a professor, though already shedding lustre on the 
College by his scientific reputation, he claimed no supe- ' 
riority to the humblest of the Faculty. He was true to 
his colleagues as individuals, and faithful to the Faculty 
as a body. Though often differing from them in judg- 
ment, he always sustained the decision of the majority, 
and would aid in the execution, even of such laws and 
sentences as his own judgment did not approve, with 
much the same spirit, with which he would have gone to 
the stake as a martyr. 

Called to the presidency in one of those trying emer- 
gencies through which the College has passed from time 
to time, he accepted the office with extreme reluctance. 
He had no taste for the peculiar duties of the office. Like 
President Edwards, he felt, that his constitution and tem- 
perament were not adapted to it. He was conscious of 
more or less unfitness in his own want of a college educa- 
tion. The innumerable details of business, of corres- 
pondence, and especially of government and police, which 
necessarily devolve on the president of a college, he knew, 
would be to him like a perpetual crucifixion. Moreover 
they must engross his time from pursuits which were 
more congenial and which promised a more ample return 
of money and of fame. It was as a man of science that 
he had gained his reputation ; and it was as a man of sci- 
ence, chiefly or only, that he could expect to transmit his 
name to posterity. It was in the same capacity also, that 
he had hitherto been useful, and that he hoped in time to 
come to benefit the church and the world. It was there- 
fore only at the sacrifice of all the cherished tastes, pur- 
suits and aspirations of his heart, that he could take upon 
him the presidency. 

* Several paragraphs here, and at the conclusion, were omitted in the deliverj. 



Zi 



Besides when he looked at the condition and prospects 
of the College, these were anything but encouraging. 
The high tide of prosperity which had flowed in so unex- 
pectedly for a time, had been followed by an ebb corres- 
pondingly low and equally unexpected. The number of 
students had gone down in ten years from over two hun- 
dred aud fifty to less than one hundred and twenty-five. 
After all that the friends of the College had done in the 
way of private subscriptions for its relief, the income was 
still far from equal to the expenditure. A debt, incurred 
in the first place for buildings, was increasing at the rate 
of two or three thousand dollars a year, and that more 
and more rapidly as the number of students was from 
year to year diminishing. Should he not only sacrifice 
his beloved studies and his prospects for scientific distinc- 
tion, but risk property, reputation, health, life — all in tak- 
ing the command of a ship, which was leaking at every 
seam, which others, ofiicers as well as students, were aban- 
doning in despair, and which not only enemies and indif- 
ferent spectators, but some of its best friends, thought, 
must inevitably sink ! Others shrunk from undertaking 
such a hazard. One and another was invited to the presi- 
dency but declined the office. He added his solicita- 
tions to those of the trustees, but to no purpose. They 
came to him as the forlorn hope of the Institution. 
He hesitated. He shrunk from it in every fibre of his 
body as well as every sensibility of his soul. But he could 
not refuse. He had already embarked in the vessel. He 
had been a subordinate officer in it for twenty years, and 
he had learned every rope, and spar, and plank in it. And 
it was a noble, nay, a sacred ship. It was freighted with 
all that was most precious to the church, and to mankind. 
In an important sense, it bore the ark of God and the 
person of Christ. It must not, nay, it could not sink. 
Such, at times, was his hope. As the storm gathered 
thicker and beat harder upon it, he sometimes seemed to 
hear a voice beside him, saying, " Ne timeas; Christum 



28 

vehis." " Fear not ; Christ is in the ship." Still he took 
the helm with fear and trembling. And he undertook it 
only on condition, that the Faculty should agree, for the 
present, to receive the income of the College, be it more 
or less, and divide it among them for their support. The 
Faculty consented. This stopped the leak at once. It 
was m^t long, before the ship began to right up and 
float upon the waters. The public sympathy was enlisted. 
Public confidence was secured. Friends came to the res- 
cue. The State, for the first time, contributed to the 
funds of the Institution. Munificent private benefactors 
rose up one after another and placed it on a solid founda- 
tion. Students flocked in as fast as they had before run 
away. In ten years, the number was doubled. The Col- 
lege edifices also were doubled in number, and more than 
doubled in value. Scientific collections, cabinets, appara- 
tus, funds may be said to have been created during this 
period — for there was scarcely anything before that de- 
served the name — and created too, with the blessing of 
heaven, by the genius and reputation, in one word, the 
character of Dr. Hitchcock. Having thus accomplished 
the object for which he accepted the office, and feeling 
also the pressure of bodily infirmities and sufferings ag- 
gravated by his excessive cares and labors, he resigned 
the command and fell back again into the ranks — rose 
again, let us rather say, for so he viewed it, to those un- 
clouded heights of science and religion, on which he had 
before delighted to stand, but which now appeared more 
serenely beautiful than ever, as he looked back upon the 
region of clouds and storm through which he had passed. 
His presidency formed a new era in the government and 
discipline of the College, as well as in its outward condi- 
tion. During his professorship, he had always been an 
advocate of a more paternal government. He never rel- 
ished the traditional system of college pains and penal- 
ties. Like too many other hereditary notions and prac- 
tices which prevail among the students, they seemed to 



29 

him to savor too much of the dark ages. Perhaps he saw 
their absurdity the more clearly for not having been edu- 
cated in the cloisters of the university. ]S"or was the sys- 
tem of college appointments much more to his liking. 
He preferred the use of moral and Christian motives. 
He had great faith in moral suasion and personal Christian 
influence. "When he came into the presidency, his ideas, 
of course, prevailed in the discipline and, to some extent, 
though not so fully, in the instruction of the College. 
Whatever may be true of other institutions in other cir- 
cumstances, there was doubtless an imperative necessity 
for reform in the administration at Amherst. However 
well it might have suited other older, larger and richer 
colleges with students younger, less manly and less gov- 
erned by religious principles, it was not adapted to a young 
institution dependent on the good will of its students for 
its very existence, and those students, the majority of 
them, mature Christian men preparing for the Christian 
ministry. From the commencement of Dr. Hitchcock's 
administration, there was a great falling off in the num- 
ber and aggravation of cases of discipline. He strove to 
rule in the hearts of the students ; and the confidence 
which they felt in his truly parental character and feelings 
towards them was, in fact, the sceptre of his power. Un- 
willingness to grieve their father restrained them from 
many an act of disobedience, which they would have 
gladly perpetrated under the government of a mere iwesi- 
dent of a college Facaliy. Of course in so large a family, 
there were perverse children, who took advantage of his 
parental kindness and grieved the good man to his inmost 
heart. Perhaps he sometimes bore and forbore too long 
with such ingrates and rebels. But of the wisdom of the 
policy, in the circumstances of the case, and of its good 
results in general, none can doubt, who is acquainted with 
the facts. 

The religious character of the young men under his 
care now became more than ever the object of his deepest 



30 

solicitude. He longed and labored to extend a Christian 
influence into all the departments of instruction and gov- 
ernment, so that Amherst College might realize the idea 
of a Christian college. The language of President With- 
erspoon of the College of New Jersey was none too strong 
to express the earnestness and intensity of his feelings : 
*' Cursed be all that learning, that is contrary to tlie cross 
of Christ ; cursed be all that learning, that is not coinci- 
dent with the cross of Christ ; cursed be all that learning, 
that is not subservient to the cross of Christ." He in- 
sisted on the maintenance of the weekly Bible exercise 
and was anxious to have every member of the Faculty 
take such a share in biblical instruction, as was most con- 
genial to his department; and as would most effectually 
link every department to the Bible. Believing with all his 
heart in the reality and the necessity of revivals of re- 
lio-ion — their necessity everywhere and their especial ne- 
cessity in college — he labored assiduously, and prayed con- 
tinually, for their frequent occurrence ; and almost every 
year witnessed the frait of those prayers and labors in 
the sanctification of the church and the conversion of a 
few souls, if not in a more copious outpouring of the 
spirit. He established a weekly religious meeting at his 
own house, at which he invited especially professors of 
reliiP'ion, but others also, if they wished, to meet him for 
prayer and the familiar discussion of some question of 
practical religious interest. These meetings were always 
interesting and instructive, and sometimes they overfiov^ed 
the study, and turned the parlor, and almost the whole 
house, into a Bethel. More than one revival of religion 
first manifested itself there, and there many an irreligious 
youth has opened his mouth for the first time in prayer 
and praise. In times of unusual religious interest, this 
was accompanied on the same evening, or followed on the 
next evening, by a meeting for inquiry, which will be re- 
membered with gratitude and joy by many a minister in 
his parish and many a missionary in far off heathen lands. 



31 

For periods of less atteution to personal religion, with the 
cordial co-operation of the professors and tutors, he insti- 
tuted a plan of personal Christian intercourse between 
the officers and students, by which all might be sure to be 
reached, watched over and cared for in their immortal in- 
terests. Soon after their admission to College, he used to 
invite the Freshman Class, in a body, to meet the offi- 
cers and their families at his house, that a personal ac- 
quaintance might be thus early formed, and a personal at- 
tachment grow up, which, he hoped, would deter them 
from evil and allure them to good more powerfullj^ than 
any college censures or even college rewards. He en- 
couraged the students to come to him with all their cares 
and troubles. If any were sick, he knew, as if by instinct 
and by experience, how to counsel them. If any were af- 
flicted, he could comfort them. If any were poor, he 
usually found some way to help them. If any were dis- 
couraged about their studies, he entered at once into their 
feelings, and inspired them with hope and courage. If 
any were poor in spirit, sick of sin, and ready to despair 
of eternal life, he directed them to the great physician. 
He had an experience wide enough and a heart large 
enough for them all. 

And this conducts us, at once, as it seems to me, into 
the secret of his great power. It was the breadth of his 
sympathies growing, out of the width of his experience — 
it was the clearness and compass of his views and the 
depth of his feelings growing out of the largeness of his 
powers and susceptibilities. He passed through a great 
variety of experience — in humble life and in high life, 
among the masses and with the great, in health and sick- 
ness, under the power of error and sin and in the glorious 
liberty of truth and righteousness. He was a large man. 
His frame was large, his mind was large, his heart was 
large. He sympathized with all, because he compre- 
hended all ; and he comprehended all, (if that is not an 
identical proposition), because he had all in himself. He 



32 

was a whole man, and therefore he was a man of univer- 
sal sympathies and universal power. He had in him all 
that is properly human, and had it in large measure, and 
therefore he could not fail to have in himself the measure 
of all minds and the key to all hearts. 

He had naturally great physical strength and powers of 
endurance ; and though by overtasking his prodigious 
powers by more prodigious exertions, he early impaired 
his health and strength, still down to the last years of his 
life, few could climb mountains or break rocks with him 
— few could endure so much fatigue as he on a geological 
excursion. 

No man could look even for the first time upon his high 
and massive forehead, and doubt for a moment, that it 
was the index and the instrument of a gigantic intellect. 
His brain was not only immense, but, as his whole struc- 
ture and temperament clearly indicated, it was of the 
finest and most delicate material. Large as was the frame- 
work of bones, and strong as was the texture of muscles 
and sinews, it was pervaded and over-mastered by a still 
more remarkable nervous development. And this also 
was of the finest texture. Every bone and muscle and 
sinew was alive with sensibility. Every organ thrilled to 
its extremity with the excitement of his mind, when it 
was roused to action, every nerve and fibre of his body 
quivered with pain or pleasure, as his heart sank with 
sadness or leaped for joy within him. 'No man of less 
sensitive nature can imagine what he sufiered, when body 
and spirit both were wounded. No language can express 
what he enjoyed, when body, soul, and spirit were all in 
harmony, and all seemingly filled with the charms of na- 
ture, the delights of science, or the love of God. 

No word of less comprehensive and exalted significa- 
tion than the word genius can express the variety, versatil- 
ity and greatness of his intellectual powers. And in so 
saying we do not understand that word in the low and 
narrow sense to which it is often desecrated ; but we take 



33 

it in its only full and proper sense as denoting an unusu- 
ally large development of all the powers proper to man. 
It were not easy to say, whether observation or reflection, 
perception or memory, reason or imagination was his pre- 
dominant faculty. Quick and accurate observation of 
nature was, of course, the foundation of his scientific dis- 
coveries. He was also a sharp observer of men- and 
things. His judgment of character, like his interpreta- 
tion of natural phenomena, was quick and seldom erro- 
neous. He had the originality and creative power which 
belong to genius. He was made for a discoverer, for an 
originator of new ideas, new theories, new methods, new 
measures. He was tall enough to see over the heads of 
other men, and catch the first dawning beams of a new 
day. He had more faith than most men, in new discov- 
eries. This believing disposition sometimes welcomed a 
premature announcement or a fabrication even, like the 
celebrated moon-hoax; but it expected great things, at- 
tempted great things and achieved great things for science. 
It wrought miracles in the scientific world. He saw an 
element of truth in Phrenology, recognized some un- 
known and mysterious power in Animal Magnetism, or 
Mesmerism as he more frequently called it, and, in the 
true spirit of a philosopher, sought to eliminate the truth 
and discover the power. As a Christian philosopher, he 
welcomed every discovery in Geology and the physical 
sciences, never doubting, that they would not only harmo- 
nize with, but illustrate and confirm the Sacred Scriptures. 
Ichnology, as a science, began, and as yet may almost be 
said to end, with him. He was the originator of the State 
Scientific Surveys. The American Scientific Association 
sprang from his suggestion ; and he was its first president. 
His originality in starting new doctrines, and new argu- 
ments in Natural Theology, is seen in instances too nu- 
merous to mention. His mode of answering the objection 
to the Resurrection of the body, his proofs" from Geology 
of the general benevolence of God, of special providence 
5 



34 

and of special Divine intervention in nature, and his Tele- 
graphic System of the Universe, may serve as examples. 
He possessed in a remarkable degree that power of rapid 
and wide generalization, by which the fall of an apple 
suggested to IJfewton the law of universal gravitation. 
Taught by a few terraces on the hill-sides, he could recon- 
struct the Connecticut Yalley at each successive geologi- 
cal epoch of its existence ; and guided by a few foot-marks 
in the sandstone, he could re-people it with its various 
orders and tribes of primeval inhabitants. If he had not 
been a great geologist and naturalist, he would have been 
a great astronomer and mathematician. The question, 
which he should be, turned, not on the faculties with 
which he was endowed, but on the accident, or rather the 
providence, of his impaired health and eyesight. 
. He might have made a great poet. He possessed the 
poetic faculty in large measure — not the faculty of rhym- 
ing merely though that came easy to him — but the crea- 
tive power of imagination. There is more poetry in the 
^'Coronation of Winter," the sermon in "A Wreath for the 
Tomb," or " The Telegraphic System of the Universe," 
than there is in many a long and popular poem. In certain 
states of his brain and nervous system, he saw visions, — 
with his eyes closed but not in sleep — "Visions of unearthly 
beauty and glory. Imagination mingled with his religious 
faith and emotions ; and then he saw visions of God and 
heaven and, like Payson and not a few other men of 
similar temperament and like precious faith, described 
them in words of more than human eloquence. 

Wit and humor were not wanting in him, as, according 
to Coleridge, genius never is destitute of those powers. 
His conversation, his lectures and his books were enliv- 
ened with playful flashes, l^ow and then a publication 
of his is overflowing with facetiousness and fun, like the 
Zoological Temperance Convention in South Africa; 
though usually these faculties are overshadowed by those 
of a larger and more solid kind. Only a short time before 



35 

his death, he called my attention to a huge bowlder of 
pure copper which lay in his sick room, and invited me to 
put it in my pocket and carry it home with me. 

In short, -he had in him the stuff and also the working 
power of half a dozen men, and each of them more than 
a common man. When sick, he could do more work than 
any well man about him. And in perfect health, he could 
turn ofl' the work of half a dozen. In addition to the en- 
grossing labors of a professorship combining several dis- 
tinct departments, or of the presidency combined with a 
professorship quite sufficient of itself to employ one man, 
and besides the innumerable special plans and efibrts to 
raise funds, build cabinets and make scientific collections, 
he has published to the world more than twenty books, of 
all sizes from small duodecimos to large quartos, besides 
innumerable articles in the daily, weekly, and quarterly • 
literary, scientific or theological journals, amounting in 
all to eight thousand pages. Several of these books, be- 
sides numerous editions in this country, have been repub- 
lished in Europe and won for him a world-wide reputation. 
His labors have shed lustre on the country that gave him 
birth, and have made the Connecticut Valley a classic land, 
whither men of science from all nations must go on pil- 
grimage, if they would see the best ichnological cabinet in 
the world, and indeed the only one that deserves or claims 
^hat distinctive name. And as they visit that cabinet, and 
the other scientific collections and buildings on this conse- 
crated eminence, under the name of Edward Hitchcock, 
they will read the inscription : si monumentum quaeris, 
circumspice. 

At the same time, his modesty was e^ual to his great- 
ness. It is said, that genius is always unconscious. Cer- 
tainly true wisdom is always modest. ITone but the truly 
wise and great are fully aware how little they do know. 
The ancient sage, who was pronounced by the oracle the 
wisest of men, acknowledged his superiority to other men 
only in this : they were ignorant without being aware of it, 



36 

he was conscious of his ignorance; and to know one's 
ignorance is to know something. In conversing with Dr. 
Hitchcock, neither stranger nor friend would have sus- 
pected from anything in his air or manner, that they were 
conversing with a man whose name was a synonym with 
science in every part of the civilized world. He never 
seemed to be aware that he had done anything — never 
seemed to think he could do anything. When he used to 
experiment in chemistry, his experiments were always go- 
ing to fail ; but they never did fail. "WTien he began a 
book or an exploration, he always doubted if he should 
be able to finish it. Those who did not know the man, 
when they saw him always speaking with so much self- 
distrust and yet always acting with such apparent self- 
reliance and such marvelous success, were sometimes 
'tempted to charge him with affectation. But never was 
there a man more genuine in his whole character — never 
one more sincere and unaffected in his self-depreciation. 
He was constitutionally self-distrustful. He distrusted 
his piety. He distrusted his own wisdom. He distrusted 
his memory. He distrusted his health. A constitutional 
diffidence prevented his speaking extempore with anything 
like the ease and fluency, which characterized his written 
productions. "When aggravated by ill health and bad 
weather, this self-distrust sometimes became morbid. It 
made him think he was going to die, when others saw, 
that he was in no immediate danger. Sometimes, though 
rarely, it deterred him from undertaking or prevented his 
accomplishing what he might otherwise have done. For 
instance, he was appointed by the Governor of JSTew York 
to make a geological survey of the eastern section of that 
State. He made his preparations and went upon the 
ground ; but encountering bad weather and suffering from 
depression of spirits, he retreated before it, returned 
home, and resigned his commission into the hands of the 
Governor. But such instances were rare. On the whole, 
he probably accomplished more for this very anomaly in 



37 

his constitution. Always fearing failure, he took the 
more pains to avoid it. Suffering keenly in all his sensi- 
bilities, he sought relief in hard work, deep thought, 
earnest writing, and heroic action. Thoroughly con- 
vinced, that his life was to be a short one, he did with his 
might what his hand found to do, and did it under the 
hallowing and inspiring influence of light and motives 
from another world. 

This modesty was connected with the most unaffected 
simplicity. He was simple as a child. This also is char- 
acteristic of genius and real worth. Ignorance and weak- 
ness may well stare and strain at what it cannot compre- 
hend. But genius and true wisdom can speak of the 
greatest subjects with the familiarity of household words. 
His style as a writer, though all aglow with imagination 
and emotion is simple, easy, flowing. He bestowed as 
little time and labor on the adorning of his thought, as he 
did on the dressing of his person. He forgot his style, as 
he forgot himself, and was wholly possessed and inspired 
by his subject. His dress, his equipage, his whole man- 
ner of living was extremely simple. And this modesty — 
this simplicity was perhaps the most beautiful and the 
most striking trait in his character. Strangers felt the 
charm of it as they saw his collection of footmarks in the 
light of his own presence, and admired the collector and 
interpreter more than the cabinet. And the savor of it 
remains with his most intimate acquaintance and friends, 
fragrant as his moral and religious worth, and more endur- 
ing" than even the memory of his scientific attainments. 

He was temperate in all things, in food, in drink, in the 
luxuries of life as well as the delicacies of the table. He 
abstained entirely from the use of intoxicating drinks, as 
a beverage. At home, abroad, in the houses of the poor, 
at the tables of the rich, in his solitary explorations and 
at public celebrations, he was everywhere the same un- 
deviating, unflinching advocate by precept and example 
of total abstinence as the only safe basis of the temper- 



38 

ance reformation, and to that reformation, he was always 
ready to give his tongue, his pen, his scientific reputation, 
all the weight of his personal and official influence. 

It was an additional recommendation of simplicity and 
temperance, that they were essential to economy. Econ- 
omy was with him a Christian duty, at once a safeguard 
from extravagance and its attendant dangers, and the 
handmaid of charity and every virtue. For the same 
reason, he took good care of his property, managed well 
his business, and was a good economist in getting as well 
as keeping money, that he might have wherewithal to do 
good, as well as to render to every man his dues. 

Dr. Hitchcock was not above the practice of honesty 
and integrity in business transactions. On the contrary, 
he was scrupulously honest in the most trivial matters. 
He made it a rule, literally as well as figuratively, to " owe 
no man anything." I never knew a man, who, in the re- 
lations of business and of common life, approached more 
nearly to the golden rule — the rule of Christian upright- 
ness. " All things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even so to them." This maxim 
controlled his transactions with the government. Think- 
ing it no more right to defraud the State, than an indi- 
vidual, his charges for service to the public were always 
reasonable — far lower than the usual remuneration for 
such services. Hence he always had the entire confidence 
and good will of the Executive and the Legislature. 
When he accepted the presidency, he insisted that his sal- 
ary should exceed that of his colleagues, who undertook 
to farm the revenue with him, by a smaller per centage 
than had been customary ; and when he resigned, it was 
his own proposition, that he should receive only half the 
ordinary salary of a professor. Carrying the same dis- 
interestedness into all the relations of life, it is not strange 
that he was a hero among his neighbors, and men hon- 
ored him more, in proportion as they knew him hetter. 

Dr. Hitchcock never did a thing merely because it was 



39 ' 

popular and fashionable. His life was one continual pro- 
test against popular errors and fashionable sins. He was 
not indifferent to the good opinions of good men. On the 
contrary, he was keenly sensitive to the approbation of 
men. But he was not dependent upon it nor swayed by 
it. If the public approval came to him in the way of his 
duty, it gratified him exceedingly ; if not, he could do 
without it. He could wait for the more impartial verdict 
of posterity, and even that was of small account in com- 
parison with the approbation of God. And the result 
shows, that popularit}'", so far as it is worth anything, is 
most sure to come to those, who do not seek it. Few men 
out of political life, and few in, have had such a hold upon 
the masses as Dr. Hitchcock. This is but the reflection 
and reciprocation of his sympathy for them. His mod- 
esty, simplicity, economy and integrity have contributed 
greatly to increase it. The common people of Massachu- 
setts, very many of them, knew him personally, They 
had seen him in the fields, among the rocks, on the moun- 
tains, in a costume like their own, and, what was more, 
with a heart like their own, only larger ; and they have 
always reckoned him as one of their own number — the 
great scientific commoner of the old Bay State. 

Still only his intimate friends knew all the largeness of 
that heart. And all its warmth and tenderness were 
known 'only to that little circle, who knew and loved him 
as a husband and father. ISTo language but their tears can 
tell what he was to them in the familiar interchange of the 
ministries, courtesies and affections of his own home; and 
even tears are all inadequate to speak the grief and anguish 
of their hearts. We will not presume to invade the sanc- 
tuary of their love and sorrow. "We will onl}'- say that Dr. 
Hitchcock loved home, sighed for it in his absence, re- 
turned to it the moment he was at liberty, and never was 
so happy in the highest honors which the world lavished 
on him, as in the bosom of his affectionate, faithful and 
devoted family. 



40 

The life of Dr. Hitchcock cannot be properly narrated, ev- 
en in its outlines, without some allusion to Mount Holyoke 
Seminary. Kor can the history of Mount Holyoke Semi- 
nary be written without large reference to Dr. Hitchcock. 
Sympathy for the masses conspired with his zeal in the 
cause of Christian education to interest him deeply in all 
the early plans and efforts for the establishment of such 
an institution. Miss Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke, 
had been known and highly esteemed by him as a teacher 
among the hills of Franklin county and at Ipswich ; and 
when she was laying broad and deep her plans for an in- 
stitution more elevated and more permanent than had 
ever yet been reared for the education of woman, she was, 
for months, a member of his family. All the principles 
and methods in which it should be founded and conducted 
were discussed with him and other friends of learning and 
relio-ion at his house ; and when at length these were suf- 
ficiently matured, his tongue and his pen were among the 
chief organs for communicating them to the public. And 
from that time to the day of his death, next to Amherst 
College, Mount Holyoke Seminary was the child of his 
affections, the subject of his prayers, the object of his 
constant watch and care. The last commission which I 
ever received from him was to affix his name to the peti- 
tion which the trustees of the Seminary have just laid be- 
fore the Legislature of Massachusetts, asking a grant in 
aid of its funds and for the enlargement of its educational 
resources. These two institutions in the Connecticut 
Valley which are so largely indebted to him for their ex- 
istence and their character, will perpetuate his name and 
his influence so long as they faithfully represent that idea 
—science and religion— which was the motto of his life. 
As we have already said, it was the highest glory and 
the chief joy of this great and good man, that he was a 
humble, penitent, believing and adoring disciple of Christ. 
All the powers of his body, all the faculties of his mind, 
all the warmth and wealth of his heart, all the treasures of 



41 

his knowledge and all the honors of his name were brought 
and laid at the feet of Jesus. And hero — at the feet of 
Jesus— here it was, that his face shone brightest, and his 
intellect penetrated farthest, and his faith rose highest, 
and his humility bowed lowest, and his whole character 
appeared invested with a true moral grandeur. Enter- 
taining a profound veneration for the Scriptures as the 
inspired word of God and an unerring rule of faith and 
practice, he brought all his powers and acquisitions to bear 
upon the right interpretation of them, and wherever he 
found an unequivocal Thus saith the Lord, it was to him 
the end of all controversy. Fully believing that Christ 
was the Alpha and the Omega of all God's revelations to 
men, whether in the kingdom of nature, providence or 
grace, he made Christ the beginning and end of his teach- 
ing and preaching. Christo et Ecclesise was the motto of 
his professorship and his presidency ; and every book that 
he wrote, was directly or indirectly dedicated to Christ 
and the Church. From the moment when he first felt 
the power of Christian truth in his own heart to the last 
day of his life, it was his paramount object to bring men 
to the knowledge, faith and obedience of Christ. His 
sermons, though remarkable for their variety and rich- 
ness, were not less remarkable for their spirituality, pun- 
gency and moral power. They grew longer as he ad- 
vanced in years, stronger, richer in thought, argument and 
illustration ; but they were also more thoroughly anointed 
with a holy unction, more fully baptized with sacred fire. 
His lectures, wherever they might begin, were sure to end 
as the Bible ends, at the throne of God and of the Lamb. 
He found " the Cross in ITature, and Kature in the Cross." 
Of all the sciences, which he studied and taught, theology 
was the center. ISTay, in his later years, he taught the 
natural sciences only as parts of Natural Theology, and 
thus as foundation stones to revealed religion. His book 
entitled "The Religion of Geology" is the type of his 
writings and of his life. That book has commended re- 
6 



42 

ligion to many a skeptical mind. Many a disbelieving 
student lias been convinced, many a doubting student es- 
tablisbed in the faith, by his lectures on the Analogies 
between Geology and Natural and Kevealed Keligion. 
Still more have been convinced and persuaded of the real- 
ity of experimental piety by his unquestionably sincere, 
consistent, holy life. I^ot in college only, but years after, 
amid the temptations and trials of public life, v^hen wave 
after wave has gone over them and the foundations have 
almost been swept away beneath their feet, they lookback 
and say, " "Well, whatever else may be doubtful, I cannot 
doubt that Dr. Hitchcock was a real Christian ; and the 
religion which satisfied him, and made him what he was, 
is true enough and good enough for me." There was a 
beautiful harmony between his teaching and his life. If 
the reconciliation of Philosophy and Faith was the sub- 
ject matter of his teaching, his life was the embodiment 
of Faith and Philosophy. As he insisted much in his 
writings on the credibility of miracles and prophecies from 
the analogy of nature, and the consistency of prayer and 
special providence with the uniformity of nature's laws, 
so he regarded his whole life as a continual series of 
special providences and answers to prayer, and Divine in- 
terpositions just as marked and just as manifest to his 
mind, as if, to use his own favorite illustration, he had seen 
the sun and moon stand still, or the waters of Jordan di- 
vide, that the people of God might pass over. 

With the self-distrust and self-depreciation, that was 
natural to him, he never was very confident of his own 
good estate. But he never doubted the reality or the 
richness of the inheritance. He had no more doubt of the 
truth and divinity of the Christian religion than he had 
of the truth of a mathematical demonstration, of a doc- 
trine or fact in science, or of the real existence of that 
material world, which it was his life work to explore. 
There was not only the same certainty in the one case as 
in the other, but the evidence was very much the same. 



43 

That religion commended itself to bis rational and moral 
nature. Its facts were established by unimpeachable tes- 
timony. 'Nay, it was itself a stupendous fact, firm as the 
solid earth, lofty and enduring as the everlasting moun- 
tains, which he had seen with his own eyes, and whose 
truth and beauty, grandeur and power he had felt in his 
own heart. Such was the purport of the last words he 
said to me, as I stood by his bedside in what he then 
thought to be his last illness, five years ago : " You know," 
he said, "I have never been confident of my personal in- 
terest in the great salvation. But the foundation stands 
sure. I have not a doubt of it — not one single doubt. It 
is firm as the everlasting hills. I may not stand upon it. 
I do not deserve to rest upon it in my dying hours. I 
have been too great a sinner. I have done too little for 
my Lord and Master. But," said he, bursting into tears, 
" I do not wish for anything surer, brighter, better than 
the hope of the real Christian. I cannot imagine anything 
more glorious. I want words to express how glorious it 
now appears to me." Yes, venerated father, the founda- 
tion does indeed stand sure, as Mount Zion above ; and thy 
feet are now planted on it. The inheritance is glorious, 
and not more solid and enduring in itself, than securely 
and inalienably thine. The title was doubtful to none but 
thyself, and ihy doubts have given place to actual posses- 
sion. Thy mingled hopes and fears are both forgotten in 
full and everlasting fruition. 'Now are thy brightest im- 
aginings of heavenly purity and beauty infinitely sur- 
passed by the present reality. ISTow dost thou behold the 
worlds which God has made, and which, to thy earthly 
sight darkened by clouds and storms, appeared so beauti- 
ful — now dost thou behold them with unclouded vision in 
the very light of His presence ; and how glorious beyond 
comparison must they be with the Lord God and the 
Lamb for the light thereof! All is well with thee. For 
thy sake we would not wish thee back to earth. But alas 
for us, thy children, whom thou hast left behind, bereft, 



44 

forlorn, fatherless ! Shall we never again lean on thy 
strong arm ? Shall we never more sit at thy feet for in- 
struction ? Shall nature henceforth be dumb, or speak to 
ns only in unintelligible signs, having lost her interpreter ? 
Shall we never again listen to thy voice as the voice of 
God in the sanctuary ? "Wilt thou never again be our 
voice in prayer to God ? Shall the officers and students of 
this college no more share in thy prayers and counsels ? 
Shall the college no more rest upon that pillar, which has 
so often sustained it under the heaviest pressure ? Shall 
the churches and their pastors never again see in their 
parsonages and their pulpits him whom they have so long 
revered as a father ? " Our father, our father, the chariot 
of Israel, and the horsemen thereof !" — But it is vain to 
call after him. " He is not, for God took him." Let us 
take up his mantle, and return to the school of the proph- 
ets, to our place of study, to our field of labor, whatever 
it may be. And oh, that a double portion of his spirit 
might rest upon us during our earthly'' pilgrimage. And 
when our change shall come, may he welcome us to the 
presence of his Savior and our Savior, his God and our 
God. And then again will we sit at his feet and hang on 
his lips, as he interprets to us the wonderful works of 
God. 

Dr. Hitchcock bore the sentence of death written, as it 
were, on his heart during the larger part of his life. With 
almost literal truth, and with emphasis, might that have 
been said of him which, in another sense, is true of us all : 
he began to die almost as soon as he began to live. His 
health broke down in the midst of his laborious astronom- 
ical observations and calculations in 1811, when he was 
only eighteen years of age ; and the comet's tail which, 
as his physician facetiously remarked, then got into his 
stomach, remained there in the form of a chronic dyspep- 
sia and then of a wasting marasmus to the day of his 
death. He was dismissed from his pastoral charge in Con- 
way on the express ground as stated by himself and ac- 



45 

cepted by the council, that " there was no reasonable 
prospect of his being able to serve the people permanently 
and profitably in the duties of the ministry." He entered 
upon his professorship in the hope that " the great amount 
of physical exercise " which it required "might enable 
him to hold out " at longest only " a few years." In his 
second annual report to the trustees after entering upon 
the duties of the presidency, he informs them that he had 
" reached that state in which his life was little else but a 
scene of severe suifering," and, though he would cheer- 
fully endure the suffering and die at his post if thereby 
he could hope to carry the college safely through its exi- 
gencies, yet there seemed little prospect of his accomplish- 
ing so desirable a result. Throughout his entire public 
life he preached and taughtas a dying man, with the grave 
alwaj^s in sight, sometimes almost stepping down into it, 
and ever and anon weaving "A Wreath for the Tomb." 
What earnestness this gave to his labors, what vividness 
to his conceptions, what intensity to his language, what 
almost prophetic inspiration to his pen and lips and life, 
none need be told. The visions of God and heaven which 
he brought back from these near approaches to the spirit- 
world, are among the richest legacies that he has left be- 
hind him. 

It is now more than six years since he asked me, as a 
last proof of the friendship and affection which had so 
long existed between us, to perform the part which I per- 
form to-day. Five years ago, physicians and friends des- 
paired of his life; -she who had been his help-meet and 
his organ of hope, the balance-wheel and almost the main- 
spring of his life, gave him up and called on-me to fulfill 
my x^ledge ; and at that time the body of this discourse 
was prepared substantiall}' as it has now been delivered. 
Had he died then he would have been saved an immense 
amount of suffering, and she who knew so well how to 
minister to him, could have smoothed his dying pillow. 
But she was destiiied to go before him, and by showing 



46 

how easy and how beautiful a thing it is for a Christian to 
die, to relieve his fear of death and thus, perhaps, to ren- 
der him a more essential service. If he had died then, the 
world would have said, it was a completed life. But not 
so heavenly Avisdom. Before heaven could say to him, 
" Servant of God, well done," he must live on and labor 
on through years of suffering, years of dying they might 
almost be called, still writing and publishing, still, like 
the aged Athenian sage, learning many things, still in- 
terpreting nature and studying his own frame so fearfully 
and wonderfully made, still lecturing to his classes though 
too feeble to go to them, and therefore inviting them to 
come to him, still making large and choice collections for 
his cabinet, still caring and planning for his beloved col- 
lege, still toiling to enlarge tl^e boundaries of science and, 
so far as possible, to perfect his favorite department, still 
watching with jealous eye his own heart, the spiritual con- 
dition of the college and the interests of evangelical re- 
ligion — all the while battling heroically with death and 
"him that has the power of death," and nobly illustrating 
the triumph of mind over matter, of faith and philosophy^ 
over all the powers of darkness even in the last extremity. 
He continued to ride on horseback till he could no longer 
sit in the saddle. Then he consented to be driven in a 
carriage ; and when he was no longer able to bear this, he 
was carried out in a chair borne by his two sons, that he 
might breathe the out-door air which he so much loved 
and look upon the face of nature, his beloved. He told 
me, he had no doubt he had prolonged his life for months 
after most persons would have succumbed to the power of 
disease, by the care with which he had watched, and — 
with the help of those ministering angels, his physician 
and his children — guarded the citadel. The activity and 
clearness of his mind at times during these last months 
was wonderful, and he said, he had a thousand thoughts 
and a thousand plans which he would have loved to exe- 
etite— -had Providence prolonged his life— all in his chosen 



47 

sphere of science aud religion. With the lively imagina- 
tion which was so characteristic of him, he sometimes saw 
himself surrounded on every side by diagrams of his fa- 
vorite sciences which, for the time, so delighted his eves 
and so engrossed his thoughts that he could hardly forgive 
his attendants if they interrupted him with the untimely, 
the almost profane intrusion of his medicines ; though 
afterwards with a kindness and politeness which was no 
less native and which his physician often noted, he w^ould 
make ample amends for it, and perchance with his charac- 
teristic humor, turn it off with a pun or some other pleas- 
antry. 

He loved to converse on personal religion, and was 
grieved when his Christian friends who called on him, 
seemed to avoid the subject. The last time I saw him, 
which was five days before his death, he expressed his 
feelings more fully than usual. After speaking of his un- 
shaken confidence in the immovable foundations of the 
evangelical Christian system and the absence, as from 
most of his former life, so now from his sick bed, of such 
sensible manifestations of the Divine presence as some 
Christians enjoyed, he was asked if Christ w^as not pre- 
cious to him: "Precious!" — he exclaimed with an in- 
flection and an emphasis which spoke volumes — " of 
course, he is unspeakably precious. But that is no more 
than everybody says who is not entirely destitute of the 
Christian's hope. He is more than that — infinitely more. 
He is everything. He is all in all." He then went on 
to express his longing desire to depart and be with the 
loved ones that had gone before him, with his pious friends 
and acquaintances who were in heaven, and with all the 
wise and good of all ages ; and with them to celebrate 
the praises of his God and Redeemer. The last night of 
his life, he seems to have been fully aware that the hour 
of his departure was at hand. For the most part, he 
was in the full possession of his faculties, though he some- 
times seemed to see gathered about his dying bed friends 



48 

that were not there. Less than an hour before he died, 
feeling that his head was not supported as he wished, he 
laid his hand on the pillow by his side and said, " There, 
-place the cross there.'' His son responding, "Father, I 
thought you had always had the cross near you." " Yes," 
said he, "But I have learned its value here — right in this 
place." " -RewzarA-a^fe .^ REMARKABLE !! " l^ot long after, 
he lifted up his hands, and said, " I am going — I am go- 
ing—farewell to earth." These were his last words. He 
breathed less frequently and more feebly for half an hour, 
and then — -just as the day was dawning — his spirit passed 
from the darkness and sorrow of earth to the light and 
glory of heaven. All his life-time, he had been more or 
less subject to bondage through fear of death. But he 
fell asleep at last as sweetly as an infant in its mother's 
arms. He often mourned that he had no more sensible 
manifestations of the Savior's presence, and enquired 
anxiously of his Christian friends if he would probably 
have dying grace given him for a dying hour. But he 
died leaning his head on the cross almost visibly present 
by his side and wondering at the riches of redeeming, 
sanctifying, sustaining grace : 

"Thou art gone to the grave! and, its mansion forsaking, 
Perchance thy weak spirit in doubt lingered long : 
But the sunshine of glory beamed bright on thy waking. 
And full on thine ear burst the seraphim's song." 

And there, the last, best, fondest desires of his heart have 
been more than realized. There he has already been re- 
united to her whose death before him took away more 
than half of his own life, and with united hand and heart 
and voice, as on earth so in heaven, they have laid their 
united offerings at the feet of Jesus. There he has been 
welcomed by Moore and Humphrey and Graves and Pack- 
ard and Fiske and Adams and Peabody and Edwards and 
Clarke, and other colleagues in the government and in- 
struction of Amherst College; and together they have 
thanked God for the success with which he crowned their 



49 

toils and Btruggles in building such an institution. There 
parishioners and pupils who loved and honored him as 
their spiritual father, were doubtless waiting to greet him ; 
and he has presented them before the throne, saying, 
" Here am I and the children thou hast given me." 
There savants and scholars in whom he delighted on 
earth as not only brethren in science but brethren in 
Christ, have doubtless recognized him and introduced 
him to that grand association of Christians and scholars 
and philosophers wherein are gathered all the truly wise, 
from the days of the wisest of men, and long before, to the 
present time ; and he has joined with them as they — now 
without one dissenting voice or one reluctant heart — 
cast their crowns before Him in whom "are hid all the 
treasures of wisdom and knowledge." There he has met 
with prophets and apostles and martyrs and those who 
have been wise in turning many to righteousness, and 
while with them he shines as a sun in the kingdom of their 
Father, with them too he sings that new song, which will 
never grow old : " Unto him that loved us and washed us 
from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings 
and priests unto God and his Father ; to him be glory and 
dominion forever and ever." " And I heard a voice from 
heaven saying unto me. Write, blessed are the dead which 
die in the Lord : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
from their labors, and their works do follow them." 
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